Valley Campaign

The Valley Campaign was an American Civil War campaign led by the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson in March-June 1862 with the goal of clearing the Shenandoah Valley of Union forces. Despite having inferior numbers, he defeated the Union over twelve times in battle and threatened Washington DC.

Background
In the spring of 1862, as George B. McClellan's 110,000-strong Army of the Potomac advanced up the Virginia Peninsula towards the Confederate capital of Richmond, Confederate morale was at its lowest point since the war started. President Jefferson Davis feared that Richmond would fall to McClellan's army, which came within nine miles of the city, but his general Robert E. Lee resolved to prevent Richmond from falling into Union hands. As Lee faced off against McClellan's army near Richmond, the renowned Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and his 17,000-strong Valley District planned to drive the Union armies of Nathaniel P. Banks, John C. Fremont, and Irvin McDowell from the Shenandoah Valley in northern Virginia. The valley was the breadbasket of the state, accounting for 19% of the entire state's wheat, as well as being livestock-rich.

Campaign
Believing that the Valley's loss would mean the loss of Virginia, Jackson withdrew up the valley from its base Winchester to lure Banks' army into battle. On 12 March, Banks' army occupied Winchester and then marched 42 miles up the Valley Pike; John Sedgwick and Alpheus S. Williams' Union divisions split off to head to Washington DC for redeployment to the Peninsula Campaign, while James Shields' division garrisoned Strasburg and later withdrew to Winchester; Banks, believing that the Valley was in his hands, prepared to leave on 23 March to join the Peninsula Campaign. Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate general-in-chief, ordered Jackson to prevent Banks' forces from leaving the Valley.

Campaign
Jackson was given faulty intelligence that Shields' force at Winchester had only around 3,000 troops, so he marched south with only 3,000 of his own men to face Shield's 9,000-strong division. On 23 March 1862, the two armies met at Kernstown, and the Union colonel Nathan Kimball inflicted upon Jackson his sole defeat of the war. However, President Abraham Lincoln redirected Union reinforcements meant for the Peninsula to the Valley to deal with Jackson; the cautious McClellan wrongly believed that his forces near Richmond were outnumbered, and idled for months while waiting for reinforcements. On 8 May, after a month of skirmishing with Banks, Jackson moved into the west of the valley and defeated Fremont's army at McDowell, preventing Banks and Fremont from combining their armies. Jackson then marched undetected through the Luray Valley to join forces with Richard S. Ewell and capture the federal garrison at Front Royal on 23 May, forcing Banks' army to retreat north. On 25 May, in the First Battle of Winchester, Jackson defeated Banks and forced his army to retreat across the Potomac River and into Maryland. The Union armies in eastern Virginia counterattacked; Shields recaptured Front Royal and sought to rendezvous with Fremont's army at Strasburg. In addition, on 6 June 1862, Jackson lost his best partisan commander, Turner Ashby, in a skirmish at Harrisonburg. Jackson was again forced to withdraw up the valley from Winchester rather than face three Union armies at the same time, and he defeated Fremont in the Battle of Cross Keys on 8 June and defeated Shields at the Battle of Port Republic a day later, destroying all of the federal armies in the Valley. Jackson and his army would then march to reinforce Lee's army outside of Richmond, defeating the Peninsula Campaign as well. The Union had come so close to destroying the Confederacy, but Jackson and Lee were able to defy all the odds and decisively turn the tide.